Bound by Symmetry
by kaleidoscope heart
Summary: A series of drabbles centering around the relationship of Spock/Uhura. "Sometimes she dreams of a time when she does not love him."
1. Chapter 1

**"Give and Take"**

She learned to take what he offered, and what he offered, more often than not, was small. A slight smile here. A tense of the jaw there. A look that lingered perhaps a half second too long after she made a particularly intelligent observation on whatever material she was assisting him with that week. The smallest thing could make her heart race once she learned how to gauge his reactions.

It wasn't like settling for less, though she knew a lot of people would think of it that way. It was like having more. Every appreciative glance and every compliment was dutifully memorized, written down in the walls of her heart for careful studying at a later time. She memorized the arch of his eyebrow and the tilt of his head when she said something awkwardly human, the ghost of a smile that graced his features when she surprised him. Often, she found herself thinking of the way he'd said her name that first time, lips wrapping around the syllables with a deliberate slowness, like he was trying to memorize her as well. She never seemed to forget anything; she had always been an excellent student, and this was surely no different.

He learned her also, slowly and against his better judgment. He became familiar with the frankly curious look on her face when he spoke of things she'd never heard of, the determined slant of her eyes when she disagreed with something he'd done. He found himself on multiple occasions, illogically, goading her into defending her argument just so he could hear the bite in her voice when she said something she believed in. He remembered the high color that had come into her cheeks for many days after he had first called her by her given name.

After a while he attempted, without allowing himself to consider what his actions might mean, to distance himself from her. He changed to longer routes when he knew they would involve seeing her; he placed her on another ship knowing the logical decision would be for her to be on the Enterprise. Neither of these things seemed to affect them in the least. He kept his eyes down instead of on her own while she demanded that she be moved, but this was no great victory, not when it secretly pleased him so that she memorized his compliments.

By the time she followed him into the lift after completing his first and only log as captain, he was sure nothing she could do would surprise him. But she pressed into him, and wrapped her arms around his pain to make it her own, holding him in a way that was so new and yet so familiar it made his breath stutter. Melting into her, he found something there, something he hadn't considered in his calculations before. It didn't fix everything, but she didn't expect for it to. She took what he offered and in turn she gave what she had.

It turned out to be just enough.


	2. Chapter 2

"Eye of the Beholder"

They stare at the sculpture a long moment before moving on, their bodies side by side on the sand covered marble as the wind whips through the destroyed roof to twine through her ponytail. They have been on this planet a full fourteen hours, twelve of which they have both spent on their feet, combing through artifacts and looking for survivors of whatever calamity has befallen the dry desert land. So far they have found many of the former, and none of the latter.

Tired and upset (she doesn't say this, he merely knows it to be fact), she weaves next to him and winds a hand out to brush the dimpled marble of the statue. It is a woman, no more exceptional than any other, the long lines of her naked except for the outline of what should be cloth wrapped around her waist. Her hair is in waves, pulled back in a bun to better highlight the femininity of her features: eyes that are blank but somehow focused, lips that seem soft but do not curve. She runs her hands down the length of one arm, fingers finding holes in the marble, one thousand losses to mark the years.

"It's perfect," she says, and there's a catch in her voice.

He disagrees with her and almost says so; the shoulders of the woman are high and slightly uneven, one ear seems malformed and an entire arm is missing. This is hardly perfection in any meaning of the word, however loosely one might wish to use it. Still, the look on her face makes him stop just short of correcting her and he decides, just this once, to concede.

Back on the ship, in his quarters, he undresses her slowly, with a patience and restrain he has practiced hard to perfect. He soothes over the lines of her arms with fingertips so gentle he can barely feel her skin beneath them, and he watches as she closes her eyes under the caress. It has been a long day for both of them, and he wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and hold her to him, but still he allows her the chance to say no. She does not.

Her eyes open to him and there is a look inside of them he has rarely seen there: raw nerve and a kind of naked vulnerability he himself can never possess. She takes his hand from her, wraps her fingers around his wrist and reels him in until they are pressed every inch together, hip to hip, his uniform shirt against her bare chest, her lips beneath his ear.

"Bed," she whispers. It is not a question, and still he nods.

When they fall down onto the bed together and he spends a long moment examining her, running hands over every bare inch of her skin he can touch, counting scars and wounds. He brushes his lips over each and when he finally looks up he is transfixed by the vision of her lying there: dark hair splayed over his pillow, eyes closed, body still and graceful as any goddess he has ever seen portrayed. He remembers the rapt attention she had paid to the statue in that forgotten temple, the look in her eye when she saw something she found flawless and perfect in beauty. He would wear that look now, if he was only slightly less himself.

Instead he slides up her body, catching her eyes as they open to him once more. The emotions swirling inside them do not concern him, only seem to compact this feeling of rightness, of perfection.

He slides into her open arms, and concedes to her again.


	3. Chapter 3

"Parallel Lines"

Sometimes she dreams of a time when she does not love him.

In these dreams, she is always on the Enterprise, always busy and always working. Her fingers slide over the familiar buttons with ease, turning, moving, translating words into commands and hails into cease fires as she fulfills the job that was always meant to be hers. There are no muted colors of nostalgia in these dreams; her subconscious wouldn't stand for it. Instead it paints the inside of her eyelids with waves of intense blues and red as she works her way through memories that are not even hers to own, feeling nothing but the fact of how achingly happy she is with the tasks that are presented to her and a rough pride at all that she has accomplished. In this way, dreams are no different from reality.

In this way, they are the same.

She teases him in these dreams, but there is nothing beneath it. No ulterior motives, no crashing of her heart when she manages to coax out that faint smile. She feels for him what she feels for most of the crew: respect bordering on adoration. But this is not love. Even in her sleep, Uhura knows the difference.

It is a difference she feels through her whole body upon waking.

Afterwards, she is always lost for several minutes. She will lie there and try to imagine that other place, that foreign universe where she doesn't know the meaning to his every vague facial gesture, that uncharted pocket of time where she doesn't even know the strength of his embrace to miss it. Reaching out to him on the nights when he is there (which, these days, is most nights) she finds she can anchor herself to the warmth of his body and slowly slide back to the universe in which she belongs, the place they have carved out for each other together from one million wounds in time.

On these nights, she thinks of her, that stranger that is herself, living her life somewhere happy and unknowing. She thinks of her and wonders as she drifts back to sleep, warm, loved.

Wonders if somewhere across time and space, there is a her that dreams of loving him, and cannot understand why. Wonders if there's a her that's missing him, when he's standing right in front of her only a few feet away.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN:** I'm aware these drabbles are pretty short and don't really go together, but most of these are just individual entries on livejournal and I figured it would be better to group the short fics together than to post them seperately, as short as they are. For those that are interested, I'm working on something longer soon which will be posted as it's own story, although this one will continue to get updated with any smaller drabbles I write.

Also, the prompt for this fic (_weather_) was given to me by forthisreason on LJ.

**"Small Talk"**

"How about this weather?" she asks, and there is a look in her eyes he doesn't recognize. Not that he knows her well enough to have all of her looks memorized, of course. He is merely aware of the fact that she has a very expressive face and uncertainty is not a look he's seen on it yet, in the classroom or otherwise. He finds the set of her jaw intriguing, but cannot understand why she would be bringing up the weather now and tells her as much.

She droops visibly, it's a disconcerting sight indeed, and takes a step closer to his desk. He stands, hands behind his back but ready to reach out if he needs to.

"Are you ill, Cadet?" he asks and she laughs, a soft puff of breath blown through nearly clenched lips. He recognizes this look now: frustration. An emotion undeniably human which he cannot help but be acquainted with.

"I am not, no," she says. He can tell she's weighing her thoughts, searching for the right words. Halfway through, she seems to almost give up. "No, not ill, just... are you familiar with the concept of small talk, Commander?"

He blinks at her, once, twice.

"I have a cursory knowledge of the idea. Is that your primary objective with discussing the weather?" She nods, her face a swirling maelstrom of human emotion: frustration, relief, want. He swallows, acutely aware his own feelings would not show as such but wishing, just once, they would. It would be worth it if only to save them both this desperate fumbling.

"I was under the impression that 'small talk,' as you put it, was for the most part unpleasant. That it is what two people who have little in common take part in."

Uhura smiles now, just a tiny little shift of her lips but something new, and takes a small step forward.

"Sometimes," she agrees. Her fingers rest on his desk and he watches her, trying to make sense of her, translate her into something he will be more likely to understand. "But sometimes it's what people do when they just want to be around each other. When they don't care what they talk about as long as they other person speaks."

Spock looks at her, long and hard, before casting his eyes to the small window to the left of his desk.

"The weather here is quite different from Vulcan, as I'm sure you are aware."

"Is different good or bad?" she asks. Her voice is lower, just the slightest bit, but it is a difference he can feel in the tips of his fingers.

"Different is neither good nor bad. It is merely a way of stating I find the two places unalike in character or quality." He looks back at her, the tiny smile on her face, the hopeful look he thinks might become familiar with given enough viewings and adds, "Different is fascinating."

Her smile grows, dazzling. He finds he much prefers that expression.

"Well," she says, and shakes her head, relieved for reasons he cannot discern yet. "That's a good start."


End file.
